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COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 



What 
Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 



ANNA A. GORDON 




Evanston, Illinois 
National Woman's Christian Temperance Union 

1914 



.$7 



Copyright, 1914 

BY THE 

National Woman's Christian Temperance Union 



NOV -9 1314 

W 

©GI.A38934G 



LILLIAN M. N. STEVENS 

Born, Dover, Maine, March i, 1844. 

Attended school at Foxcroft Academy, 
Foxcroft, and Westbrook Seminary, Portland. 

Taught in the schools of Portland and 
vicinity. 

At the age of twenty-one became the wife 
of Mr. M. Stevens of Stroudwater, a suburb 
of Portland. 

Interest in temperance reform work dates 
back to childhood. Became actively iden- 
tified with the work when the Crusade call 
sounded in 1873. 

1875. Became the first treasurer of Maine 
W. C. T. U. 

1878. Elected president of Maine and held 
this office until the end. 

1880. Chosen national assistant record- 
ing secretary and later, national recording 
secretary. 

1894. Became national vice-president-at- 
large. 

1898. Elected president of the National 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 

As vice-president of the World's W. C. T. 
U., presided over the international con- 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

ventions at Geneva, Switzerland, 1903; Bos- 
ton, Mass., 1906; Glasgow, Scotland, 1910; 
and Brooklyn, N. Y., 19 13. 

Mrs. Stevens was Neal Dow's strongest 
co-worker and after his death was recognized 
as the leader of the Maine prohibition forces. 
In 191 1, when all liquordom was arrayed 
against Maine in the struggle for the reten- 
tion of her prohibitory law, she led the white- 
ribbon forces to victory. At a great public 
meeting in Portland on the evening before 
the battle of the ballots, she issued the 
famous proclamation which appears on page 
85 of this book. 

In 191 1 Mrs. Stevens received from Bates 
College the honorary degree of Master of Arts. 

She was deeply interested in prison reform 
and since 1882 urged the establishment of a 
state reformatory for women. She was 
intimately associated with work for un- 
fortunate women and was one of the founders 
of the Temporary Home for Women and 
Children. For many years she was connected 
with the Industrial School for Girls. Child 
saving work strongly appealed to her mother 
heart and she did a great deal in this line. 

For several years Mrs. Stevens represented 
[iv] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

her state at the National Conference of 
Charities and Corrections, and for six years 
was treasurer of the National Council of 
Women. Notable among her public services 
was her work as a member of the Board of 
Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition 
in Chicago in 1893. 

She was promoted to heavenly service 
April 6, 1914. 

Mrs. Stevens' contributions to literature 
on the temperance question alone would give 
her conspicuous place in that reform, and 
as a speaker her forceful, eloquent delivery 
made her a power upon the platform. It 
has been well said that "the words of this 
richly endowed, truly noble woman stay with 
one and 'ring like the tones of a great bell 
after the sound ceases." ' 

This little volume contains a few of the 
paragraphs from her masterly Annual Ad- 
dresses delivered before National W. C. T. U. 
Conventions. 

At the end is added, besides the Proclama- 
tion, a quotation from her last public address, 
and her last sacred message to her country. 



[v] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES DE- 
LIVERED BEFORE ANNUAL CONVEN- 
TIONS OF THE NATIONAL WOMAN'S 
CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION 
1899-1913 



SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, OCTOBER, 1899 

License is license, and the effect is the same 
whether high, low, medium, mulct, Gothen- 
burg or dispensary. There is no place for it 
under the W. C. T. U. banner. We stand for 
the principle of Prohibition first, last and 
always. 

I cannot too strongly emphasize the desire 
I feel that in all our large cities the nation over 
there should be held a daily Gospel Temper- 
ance meeting at the noon hour under the 
leadership of our local unions, a service of 
prayer, testimony and sacred song, designed 
especially to reach the drinking classes, and 
where the total abstinence pledge is always 
offered. Let there be a " Lookout Com- 
mittee' ' appointed to invite those who are 
away from their homes, and in the midst of 
the counter currents of city life, to attend this 

[11 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

meeting, where they will find warm sympathy 
and help from our mother-hearted white- 
ribboners. Many of our unions already sup- 
port such a meeting, but let me lovingly urge 
its vital importance upon all. In these meet- 
ings held weekly if not daily, the music ought 
to be an important feature. I cannot sing 
a note myself, but I love to hear you "Sing 
them over again to me," those "wonderful 
words of life," and everywhere there are 
hungry souls to whom some sweet refrain of a 
Gospel hymn will be the very bread of life. 

Saloon keepers attract many a customer by 
the drinking troughs outside their doors, and 
is it not a libel on the intelligent horse who is 
slaking his thirst with water to say that his 
master, who meantime proceeds to poison 
himself with alcoholic drinks, is making a 
beast of himself? 



WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER, 190O 

We may sometimes be impatient, but we 
should never be discouraged. To be sure we 
have arrayed against us the solidly combined 
liquor business of the country. In its arro- 
gance it sometimes dictates to judge and jury. 
[2] 



What hiillan M. N. Stevens Said 

It is numerically strong and financially rich, 
but it is spiritually bankrupt and morally 
poorer than poverty itself. We have with us 
the same class of people that has always led 
in all the just reforms of the past. We have 
on our side the testimony of science, of law 
and of gospel, and the Lord of Hosts is our 
leader. Are we not sure to win? 

To mark the signs of progress one has only 
to look back to the early part of the nine- 
teenth century. Then nearly every one 
drank and no one questioned the propriety 
of the habit. A barn could not be raised in 
the country or a steeple put on a church in 
the city without the liberal use of the whisky 
bottle. When ministers met for ecclesiastical 
purposes the drink was in their midst. It was 
furnished alike at funerals and at weddings. 
When seventy-five years ago Lyman Beecher 
delivered his famous six sermons against in- 
temperance they were received with amaze- 
ment by all and condemnation by many. To 
be sure, twenty-five years before, Dr. Ben- 
jamin Rush gave to the world his famous 
essay, "The Effects of Ardent Spirits on the 
Human Mind and Body," but it was more 
surprising in those days for a minister to treat 
[3] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

the question from a moral and Christian 
standpoint than for a physician to consider it 
physiologically. Early in the century Sam- 
uel Dexter, Ex-Secretary of War, and Dr. 
Muzzy, President of Dartmouth College, did 
much to arouse an interest in the question of 
total abstinence. One of the early trophies 
of the pledge was John B. Gough, and about 
this time Neal Dow came prominently forward 
to champion the legal side of the question. 

We believe that the need which called for 
separate organizations of women still exists, 
and that the training and experience which 
come to woman through W. C. T. U. methods 
are fitting her as nothing else fitted her to 
take her place side by side with man in all 
relations of life. For this and many other 
reasons the W. C. T. U. is likely to go on and 
on, always in harmony with the trumpet call 
to the defence of principle which rang out in 
1873-74. We welcome all who join our ranks 
under its constitutional provisions. 



FORT WORTH, TEXAS, NOVEMBER, 1901 

We of the white-ribbon army know there is 
nothing which produces so much misery for 
[4] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

multitudes and so much profit for others (look- 
ing at the profit from the short-sighted human 
standpoint) as does the manufacture and sale 
of alcoholic liquor, and we confidently believe 
the only way to overthrow the liquor traffic 
is through state and national prohibition. 

It is not strange that there are some people, 
among them Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell, 
the English writers, who contend that because 
of the violation of prohibitory laws the dis- 
pensary, municipal or government control 
system would better be substituted. We do 
not hesitate to affirm that prohibitory laws 
are better enforced than are the restrictive 
features of any license law, high, low, dis- 
pensary or any other form. It is a frequent 
sight to see over saloons in Illinois a sign, 
" Grand Opening on Saturday and Sunday," 
while the law of Illinois prohibits liquor sell- 
ing on Sunday. Yet it is well known that this 
requirement is universally ignored in the 
state. The same is true of other license 
states in regard to this and all other restrictive 
features of liquor laws. The liquor trade 
constantly resists any and everything which 
interferes with its right to sell liquor at all 
times, and in all places where it may choose. 
[5] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

The overcoming and all conquering power 
in the world is, after all, the gospel of Christ. 
May we, beloved comrades, as we go forward, 
earnestly strive to have more and more the 
heart and mind of Him who is before all 
things and above all things. May we go 
forward toiling faithfully and obeying loving- 
ly the call to duty, and so we will be going on 
toward the time when the evils we combat 
shall be overthrown. Are any impatient? 
Are any weary? Are any faint-hearted? 
We believe in God! 

"God works in all things, . . . 



Wait thou and watch, the world is gray 
With morning light." 



PORTLAND, MAINE, OCTOBER, 1902 

It is urged by the opponents of prohibition 
that the prohibitory law leads to hypocrisy 
and to the corruption which sometimes comes 
to public knowledge in connection with its 
enforcement. 

The liquor interests would as unscrupulous- 
ly bribe an officer who has charge of the en- 
forcement of the restrictive features of a 
license law in New York, as they would bribe 
an officer whose duty it is to enforce the 
[6] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

prohibitory law in Maine, and, moreover, the 
claim that prohibition leads to hypocrisy and 
corruption would apply with equal force to 
all law against crime. The law which pro- 
tects the bank or the home from burglary has 
by the same token a tendency to make the 
burglar a hypocrite in addition to being a 
thief, but because of this no one is likely to 
ask for the repeal of the law against stealing. 
It is generally admitted by sociologists that 
while advancing civilization enlarges the 
sphere of individual life and liberty, society 
must also defend itself by an increased num- 
ber and a strict enforcement of prohibitory 
statutes. 

An individual supposed to be well versed 
in public affairs recently made the remark 
that it was a pity that a society so large and 
so much in earnest as the W. C. T. U. should 
not be more interested in charitable work. 

A few months ago in the city of Chicago, a 
man born in a foreign country, but who had 
lived in the United States long enough to gain 
and to fill positions of honor in municipal 
affairs, came to a tragic death. He was 
blind from injuries inflicted by a saloon- 
keeper whose place he had patronized. Suf- 
[7] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens Said 

fering from that terrible disease, delirium 
tremens, he went to a hospital for treatment. 
There was a fire in the building and this poor 
man passed his last moments trying to release 
himself from his fetters, and died at his barred 
window with his powerful yet powerless hands 
strapped across his breast. He could hardly 
have deserved such a fate as this, for at his 
funeral the minister said his good deeds in a 
single week were counted by the hundreds. 
Is it not a work of charity to seek to remove 
the temptation and to outlaw the traffic of 
that which is so dangerous, so altogether 
diabolical, in its results? 

Not long ago three sisters stood before a 
judge in Philadelphia, and were thankful to 
give such testimony as would shut their 
drunken mother within the House of Correc- 
tion for one year. They had struggled brave- 
ly, " tried hard to get our mother to stop 
drinking, but she wouldn't, she couldn't." 
Is it not a work of charity to try to prevent 
such suffering, such humiliation as this? 

One morning a drunken father was sen- 
tenced to jail. His two motherless boys had 
followed him to the court room. They were 
too young to fully understand what it all 
meant, but they were quietly led away and 
[8] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

taken to her home by the W. C. T. U. super- 
intendent of work in prisons, jails, police 
stations and almshouses. Is not such as this 
a work of charity — symbolical of that charity 
which "rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth 
in the truth ?" Of that love which "suffereth 
long and is kind?" Of that love upon which 
all right effort must be founded? Of that 
love which is the fulfilling of the law of God? 

While we are here, and as we go forth into 
the work of another year, may there come to 
us all a new baptism of Divine love, and 
mingled with it may we have the 

"Faith that will withstand the shock of toil and time, 
Hope that defies despair ," 

and may we go patiently forward toward the 
mountain of victory. 



CINCINNATI, OHIO, NOVEMBER, 1903 

In the report of Dr. Arthur McDonald, 
government expert in criminology, the refer- 
ence to the increase of crime, taken by itself, 
would be depressing; but the report also indi- 
cates that the increase of crime according to 
statistics is not necessarily a proof that the 
world is growing worse. Carroll D. Wright 
in a recent address speaking upon this point 
[9] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

said: "The difficulty is that we do not stop 
to distinguish what is crime to-day and what 
was crime forty or fifty years ago ; nor do we 
stop to consider the question as to the more 
perfect statistics of to-day brought into com- 
parison with the very imperfect and crude 
statistics of half a century ago. The statistics 
comprehend not only the persistent crimes 
but those crimes which have been established 
by legislative enactment, and increasingly so 
during the last few years. If we look be- 
neath the figures we shall find that the crimes 
that have remained persistently so un,der the 
criminal code during the last fifty years have 
not only not increased, but have relatively 
decreased. This is the true test. 

Advancing civilization enlarges the sphere 
of individual life and liberty, but society has 
to defend itself by an increasing number of 
prohibitory laws. 

The persuasiveness of the Beatitudes is a holy 
and mighty force in Christendom, but the 
"Thou shalt not" of the Decalogue will be re- 
quired to some extent until the millennial day. 

Notwithstanding the great spectacle of sin 
and misery which is ever visible to those who 
seek the world's amelioration there is mani- 
[10] 



What Lillian M. N. S tev ens Said 

fold testimony that the religion of Christ is 
making its way. One indication of this is the 
multiplication of organizations and institu- 
tions for the purpose of caring and providing 
for the unfortunate, the defective and the 
dependent classes in the best possible manner; 
and the growing tendency to help those who 
are honestly needy and poor to help them- 
selves without suggesting to them that they 
are dependents, is a still stronger manifesta- 
tion of the love which is always kind. The 
increasing interest in the child labor problem, 
the establishing of Juvenile Courts, the 
organized work for newsboys, are all indica- 
tions that the spirit of Him who blessed the 
children is flowing out through human in- 
strumentalities to defend the weak and bless 
the innocent. 

The divine element of equality and justice 
must and will enter more and more into the 
solution of the labor question. It is this 
element which has led to the organization of 
labor unions; it is the same element which, 
further developed, is destined to bring about 
a mutual recognition on the part of the em- 
ployed and the employer of the rights of each 
and all. 

[11] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

Since "nothing can arrest the progress of a 
true principle on its way to the heart of intelli- 
gent people," it would be strange if we could 
not declare, as we can, that the question of the 
equality of woman "under the Gospel and 
under the Law" is gaining new ground and 
new adherents. There is a continually in- 
creasing number of women who feel concerned 
in regard to the legislation that affects all 
the people, whether or not all realize this to 
be so. 

There is a proportionately large number of 
men who acknowledge the justice of the 
equality of the sexes in all of those matters 
which pertain to the interests dear to women's 
hearts, those interests which are connected 
with the home, the church, the school, the 
state and the nation. 

As temperance women, we desire the right 
of franchise because we believe we could, thus 
armed, deal more effectually with the liquor 
problem, and the fact that the liquor element 
is always opposed to woman suffrage furnishes 
ample proof that we are right in our belief. 
Those who think that women should have 
equal opportunity with men in the medical 
field have reason to rejoice as little by little 
the barriers built up by custom, prejudice and 
[12] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens Said 

superstition are being swept away. Those 
who believe in woman's equality in the church 
may rejoice as one woman after another is 
being elected as a delegate to the General 
Conference of the Methodist church with no 
possibility of her being turned away because 
she is a woman. Those who believe in the 
equality of women in governmental affairs 
may w r ell rejoice as they read the statements 
of fair-minded men living in those commu- 
nities and states where the ballot with all of 
its responsibility has been granted to women. 
These are but a few of the encouraging proph- 
ecies of that better time toward which Chris- 
tian civilization is leading. 



PHILADELPHIA, PA., NOVEMBER, 1904 

Peace, Purity, Total Abstinence, and Pro- 
hibition — on these four " hang all the law and 
the prophets" of the temperance reform, as 
understood by the W. C. T. U. 

Last March there was set up in the Andes 
a statue of Christ. Its pedestal is in the form 
of a globe. It is on an eminence 14,000 feet 
above the sea. As I read the story of the in- 
ception, the growth, the consummation of 
[13] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens Said 

this beautiful idea, I was impressed with its 
significance to this nation. There was a 
dispute between two South American states 
as to the ownership or possession of a strip of 
land. The feud increased as the years went 
on. War seemed to be close upon them. All 
of the implements were in readiness, when 
the Bishop of Cuyo, a noble Argentine, actu- 
ated with God-like love, reached across to the 
western slope of the mountains, clasped hands 
with another heaven-inspired man, and to- 
gether they sowed the seeds of peace and love, 
and together with all their people they rejoice 
as now they look upon their statue of Christ, 
which signifies peace. After all and above all 
do individuals and nations need to have more 
of the Christ spirit, and when this in greater 
fulness shall come to humanity, the time will 
come when there will be peace — 

"Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals 

The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies, 
But beautiful as songs of the immortals, 
The holy melodies of love arise." 

14 Of Law there can no less be acknowledged 
than that her seat is the bosom of God, her 
voice the harmony of the world." This as- 
suredly is true of all righteous law; and the 
freedom which makes for harmony and truth 
[14] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

must be protected, and whatever makes for 
discord and sin should be prohibited. The 
higher the standard of life the greater the 
number of laws necessary to preserve this 
standard. The prohibitory laws against the 
sale of intoxicating liquor as a beverage have 
been enacted, not through the influence of 
those who have been actuated by mercenary 
and selfish motives, but by a genuine and in- 
telligent interest in the welfare of the human 
family. The fact that in every state there is 
some legislation against the free sale of al- 
coholic liquor is an acknowledgment that 
it is a dangerous article; and furthermore, the 
fact that approximately one-half of the terri- 
tory of the United States — extending into 
forty states, with a population of about thirty 
millions — is under prohibition, local, county 
or state, ought to convince those not wholly 
of our faith that in working for national pro- 
hibition we are not hopeless fanatics. 

As a rule, those who are individual pro- 
hibitionists, or in other words total abstainers, 
believe in legal prohibition. John Burns, 
the great labor leader, while asserting that the 
supreme remedy for the drink evil is total 
abstinence, has said it must be supplemented 
[15] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

by legislative action; and sooner or later, all 
those who are now seeking to protect their 
business interests by requiring total absti- 
nence of their employees will come to see 
the necessity of legal protection, or prohibi- 
tion. The most active opponents of prohibi- 
tion are the brewers, the distillers, the liquor 
sellers, and their representatives. To the 
close reasoner and careful thinker, no other 
proof need be presented to show that pro- 
hibition reduces the amount of liquor sold and 
consumed than the well-known fact that the 
liquor trade is always opposed to the prohibi- 
tory law. Read the declarations in the or- 
gans of their Various societies, and the reso- 
lutions passed at their meetings; note their 
presence and distribution of anti-prohibition 
literature in every locality where a prohibition 
campaign is going on. And seeing all this, we 
may ask, How can any sane person who is well 
informed believe for a moment that prohibi- 
tion fails to reduce the consumption of alco- 
holic liquor? The liquor trade resents and 
resists all efforts to curtail its business, either 
by local, state, or any other form of prohibi- 
tory law. 

If there are those who think the spirit that 
[16] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

actuated the leaders of the Crusade move- 
ment is not abroad to-day, they do not fully 
understand the spirit or the work of the 
W. C. T. U. I am thinking of one incident of 
recent occurrence, so like others which have 
been transpiring during the last three decades, 
so like others of which many of you, my dear 
comrades, have been an active part. The 
scene is a western Chautauqua. It is W. C. 
T. U. Day. Several state presidents and two 
national officers are the speakers; the sub- 
jects: "The Apostasy of Woman," "The 
Truth Shall Make You Free/' "What the 
W. C. T. U. Is and Does," "The Child in the 
Midst," "The W. C. T. U. Principles." At 
the close of the long day, just before the twi- 
light hour, a generous friend invites the 
speakers and other friends for a sail across the 
lake. Going ashore for a few moments they 
enter an inviting looking building, only to 
find that it is a place where liquor is sold. In 
response to inquiries the alert young propri- 
etor says, with a kingly air, that he is licensed 
to sell liquor, that he is breaking no law; while 
in full view are young men and young women 
who are drinking, young people unmistakably 
yet in their teens. There are others in a state 
of intoxication who are also drinking — and 
[17] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens Said 

the license law of this state forbids the sale 
of liquor to drunkards and to minors. The 
twenty or more W. C. T. U. women look at 
each other for a moment, then one of their 
number starts the Crusade hymn, "Rock of 
Ages, cleft for me," and the others join in the 
song. In a moment those who are drinking 
at the tables push back their glasses, and some 
of them sing also. One of the W. C. T. U. 
women stands beside one of the drinking 
women who before the song commenced 
seemed lost to all sense of respectability, but 
now with a look of wonderment on her face 
she sings with the others, "Let me hide my- 
self in thee." At the close, when^gntly asked 
by the white-ribboner beside her where she 
learned the hymn, she replied, " I sang it with 
my mother long ago, but I had forgotten it. 
Drink has almost drowned my mother from 
my memory, and 'Rock of Ages,' too." 

Let no one say the spirit of the Crusade has 
died out. It is maintaining itself to-day as 
never before. It is actuating those who, from 
pulpit and platform, proclaim the gospel of 
total abstinence and prohibition. It is in- 
spiring those who seek to "save that which is 
lost" through this curse of curses. It is 
guiding those who, in many W. C. T. U. lines 
[18] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

of work, are shedding abroad gospel temper- 
ance truths. Oh no, the Crusade spirit will 
not die while there exists the legalized sale of 
that which causes sons and daughters to for- 
get their mothers and to forget the Rock of 
Ages. God help the National W. C. T. U. 
to go forward with ever increasing purpose 
and in the same spirit that inspired the Cru- 
sade mothers, should be the prayer of all our 
hearts. 



LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, OCTOBER, 1905 

For the endeavor to enthrone the Lord of 
Life and Love in darkened human hearts the 
Crusade Call came, and the Crusade spirit, 
deepening, broadening, uplifting, makes radi- 
ant the faces of those who have climbed far 
up the sunrise side of life, of those who more 
recently have heard humanity's wail, and of 
those who in their youth have selected as 
their line of march the way the white-rib- 
boners go. 

The only failure that can come to the Chris- 
tian reformer is the failure to adhere to that 
which is right. 

[19] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

One of the greatest drawbacks to the prog- 
ress of the temperance reform is the example 
set by those occupying high and honorable 
positions who say they can drink moderately 
and it harms no one, and that all other people 
with good mental equipment should be able 
to do the same. This is a most presumptuous 
and unfounded assumption. I will not blot 
nor sadden this page by placing upon it, as 
I might, the names of men of mighty intellect, 
men representing every profession — states- 
men, jurists, and poets — who have tried to be 
moderate drinkers and have failed. The 
example they set after their failure was not so 
influential for evil as when they were known 
as men who only took their wine socially. It 
is the marvel of marvels that any well-in- 
formed, humanity-loving man living in the 
light of the present time, even though he feels 
confident that he can drink or let liquor alone, 
chooses not to let it alone. If every man of 
this class could have his eyes opened to see the 
result of his example, as did Mark Guy Pearse, 
social drinking among those who are not 
bound by appetite would soon become a cus- 
tom of the past. 

We have reason to believe that it is lessen- 
ing all of the time, and this, too, in a remark- 
[20] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

able degree when we consider that thought 
as well as appetite is hereditary. It is not 
easy for some men to move out of the rut of 
family custom, and not easy for them to 
readily see the evil product of that which 
always has been regarded by their family as 
necessary or desirable, even though some of 
its members have been ruined by its use. We 
deplore this blindness on the part of those 
who are clear-sighted on other questions, and 
yet we have great reason to rejoice that social 
moderate drinkers are not as numerous as in 
days gone by. " Fashionable drinking" is a 
familiar expression, and it is indeed encour- 
aging to know that fashionable teetotalism is 
being substituted for it. That liquor drink- 
ing under any conditions attracts attention 
and criticism more widely than ever before is 
one of the most inspiring features of the 
temperance reform. In this country those 
who take the social glass, rather than those 
who decline it, are the subject of comment. 
Even in England social drinking is lessening. 
Some prominent men now boast publicly of 
their teetotalism, as did the Lord Mayor of 
London not long ago in declaring that he and 
the members of his family and his various 
attaches were total abstainers. In a recent 
[21] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

number of one of the great fashionable pictor- 
ials of London we find the following interest- 
ing statement: "To be teetotal is even to be 
in distinguished company. It is almost an 
exception to be present at a big luncheon at 
which the 'wine goes round' ; it hops and skips 
men and women alike, until one suspects the 
existence of some secret league of temperance 
which is gathering smart society to its fold. 
Who can explain it?" 

Its full explanation would involve the entire 
history of the temperance movement from the 
time Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote his remarkable 
essay more than one hundred years ago; from 
the time John Wesley said, "The liquor sellers 
are poisoners general"; from the time Shakes- 
peare exclaimed, " O thou invisible spirit of 
wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, 
let us call thee devil!" As the eleventh com- 
mandment given us by our Lord and Saviour 
is applied more fully to the customs of society 
and the laws of our land, this evil spirit in like 
proportion will be cast out from the heart and 
the home, the community and the nation. 

The basic principle of a license law is wrong. 
If it is right to sell liquor there should be no 
restriction. If it is wrong to sell, then it is 
[22] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

certainly wrong to license such sale, and this 
conclusion is reached by the same method of 
reasoning that leads us to believe that it is 
wrong to license murder and theft. There is 
much more violation of the liquor laws in 
license states than in prohibitory states. The 
prohibitory features of license laws are not so 
well enforced as are the provisions of a clear- 
cut prohibitory law. The men who engage 
in the liquor trade in prohibition territory 
belong to the class that would violate any law. 
This fact is being recognized to such an extent 
that the saloonkeeper is as a rule ostracised, 
debarred from many organizations and from 
decent society generally. Yet it is argued by 
some that it is necessary to give such men the 
legal privilege of presiding over places called 
saloons, places which a distinguished lawyer 
in a license city describes as, "The robber's 
retreat, the housebreaker's pawnshop, the 
burglar's cache, the footpad's fence and the 
assassin's alibi." We appeal to the license 
advocates and ask, " Do you wish these places 
legalized for the use and benefit of your sons? 
If not suitable for your sons, who, then, should 
patronize them?" 

The deceptions connected with the liquor 
[23] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

traffic are manifold. Some will even contend 
that there is more drinking under prohibition 
than under license, notwithstanding the 
figures to the contrary. There is a larger 
stock of liquor in any one of Boston's licensed 
saloons than can be found in all of the boot- 
legs, pockets, canes, kitchens, back alleys and 
all other places in Portland, Me., where it 
possibly may be sold. If prohibition did 
really increase the consumption of alcohol and 
liquor selling, every liquor manufacturer and 
liquor seller would be shouting for prohibi- 
tion, instead of using time and money at every 
point to defeat prohibition. It is said by 
some that prohibition leads to deceit and 
hypocrisy. This may, with equal force, be 
said of all laws directed against evil. The 
housebreaker is not always frank and open 
in his proceedings ; neither is the murderer or 
the thief. It is sometimes claimed that pro- 
hibition breeds corruption in politics. It 
would be hard to find a more striking incident 
of corruption of this nature than that which 
was reported last winter from the capital city 
of the great license state of New York. 

The oft-repeated statement that prohibi- 
tion injures trade is applied by some to other 
[24] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

than the liquor trade, notably the hotel busi- 
ness. The owners and proprietors of two of 
the largest, most popular hotels in Maine, 
hotels which have prospered for twenty-five 
years, have never violated the provisions of 
the Maine law and they are rich and success- 
ful. As is well known, Maine is a great sum- 
mer resort, and it can be said to the praise of 
the thousands of tourists who come to the 
state that they do not consider liquor selling 
necessary for their comfort or convenience, as 
is proved by the fact that the past season, with 
the strictest enforcement Maine has ever 
known, the summer resorts have had a pat- 
ronage exceeding that of any former year. 
It has been impossible for Portland hotels to 
accommodate all who applied, and in many 
instances the proprietors have been obliged 
to provide rooms at private residences and 
small boarding houses. 

The time when the women of this country 
shall have the ballot on the same terms as 
men of like intelligence is being greatly has- 
tened by the steady, persistent effort that 
woman is herself making. This advance is 
not the result of her effort alone, but rather of 
the combined efforts of men and women ; and 
[25] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens S aid 

the number of broad-minded men who recog- 
nize the great principle of justice and equality 
as applied to the treatment of woman is 
rapidly increasing. Wendell Phillips said, 
"We have no right to debar woman from the 
ballot box while she is freely admitted to the 
tax list, the jail and the gallows." The oppo- 
sition expressed by some men to the hanging 
of women is due somewhat to the fact that it 
is comparatively unusual for a woman to be 
condemned to death. If it is right to hang a 
man it is right to hang a woman for a like 
crime. There is, however, a manifest in- 
justice in classing women with the irresponsi- 
ble and insane so far as the franchise is con- 
cerned, and then lifting them out of that class 
in order to kill them according to a law which 
they had no voice in making. The questions 
of equity and truth are being freely discussed 
in these later days, and gradually woman is 
coming to her rightful God-given privileges; 
how soon depends largely upon the courage 
and faith of woman herself. The white- 
ribboners have this faith and this courage! 
Let us utilize these attributes, practically and 
persistently letting "patience have her per- 
fect work." 



[26] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

May it ever be said, and said in truth, of the 
members of the Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union, that they are women of faith, 
women of high ideals. As we look back over 
the pathway from the morning of the Crusade 
to this thirty-second annual convention of 
the National W. C. T. IL, may we fully com- 
prehend how far we have climbed, and thus 
be inspired to go faithfully forward — 

"Fearing not to build our eyries on the heights 
Where golden splendors play," 

and always believing that — 



'God will make divinely real 
The highest forms of our ideal," 



and our ideals will be shaped according to our 
faith. 

Above all things else let us pray for a 
heightened faith, a brightened hope, a deep- 
ened love; so may we come to know more of 
God, of the eternal goodness which abideth in 
the heart to regenerate and inspire, of the 
eternal righteousness which cometh to a na- 
tion to purify and to exalt. 



[27] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s Said 

HARTFORD, CONN., OCTOBER, 1 906 

"Work on the foundation is hidden and 
slow, but the firmer you make it the higher 
you go." Reach out for the boys and girls in 
the formative period of their lives and give 
them moral backbone to meet the alluring, 
degenerating temptations of life. If neces- 
sary, have a paid helper and your funds will 
be well invested. We shall reap just as we 
sow. Sow the seeds of temperance truth and 
white-ribbon activities; cultivate wisely and 
lovingly this implanted truth, and a genera- 
tion hence these girls and boys grown to 
womanhood and manhood will demand pro- 
tected homes and righteous laws. 

The liquor trade is a mighty monopoly 
compared with which every other monopoly 
pales into insignificance; but the bulwarks of 
this trade are constantly being weakened. A 
widespread call for a new sort of morality in 
public officials has been heard in many states, 
and in the nation at large the idea has been 
emphasized that large corporations and men 
of greatest wealth are not exempt from the 
requirements of the people's laws in the 
people's courts. The liquor trade is not only 
sustained by avarice but by an appetite more 
[28] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

insatiate than that of the miser — an appetite 
which unconsciously sways or controls the 
action of the man who is counted among those 
never known to drink to excess. Notwith- 
standing all this, the saloon more than ever 
before is regarded with disfavor by respect- 
able people. 

The advocate of moderation will point to a 
man apparently successful who takes his daily 
drinks, but we can point to Charles Stuart, 
"bonnie Prince Charlie/' for whom his people 
at one time would have died so much did 
they love him, but who became a drunken sot; 
to Alexander the Great, who with all his con- 
quests was himself conquered by strong drink; 
to Robert Burns, who with all his genius could 
not cast out from his own life the demon of 
drink; to-Charles Lamb, whose natural refine- 
ment did not save him from the demoralizing 
effects of the wine cup. We need not men- 
tion here the names of those in our own land 
and of later history — men of brilliant intel- 
lect and bright promise whose usefulness has 
been impaired, whose prospects have been 
blighted by the use of alcoholic drinks. A 
young society woman whose home is in a 
license city, herself a total abstainer, remarked 
[29] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

to a temperance friend that it was very hard 
to make a strong argument in favor of total 
abstinence when there were so many moder- 
ate drinkers in their social circle who were 
successful in business and happy in their home 
life. To this we would say that in your circle 
just now you see but one section at one stage 
of action. Let us shift the scene a little. A 
temperance specialist was permitted to sit in 
the office of a Keeley Institute while the pa- 
tients came filing in with bared arms to take 
their semi-daily treatment. When the last 
one had passed out, the doctor said, "In that 
line were representatives of many business 
enterprises, of educational institutions, of 
every profession ; men who are still possessors 
of large wealth and others who have wasted 
their fortunes and are now trying to get well 
so that they may begin life anew." These men 
were compelled to acknowledge that they had 
not been wise and that they had been deceived 
by that king of deceivers — strong drink. 

Sooner or later every well-meaning person 
who gives any attention whatever to the 
liquor problem, if he is capable of sane reason- 
ing, will come to see the fallacy and the wick- 
edness of any form of license as applied to the 
[30] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

sale of liquor for beverage purposes. Through 
political maneuvering united with the liquor 
power, Vermont repealed its prohibitory law 
three years ago by a majority vote of seven 
hundred and twenty-nine. The people of the 
state had been free from the licensed saloon 
for fifty years. They were not acquainted 
with it and they permitted it to come to the 
state. After one year's trial under the 
license system the no-license vote was 7,008 
greater than the license vote, and after three 
years' trial it was 8,697 greater. But this 
majority vote could not be brought to bear in 
a way that would give back state prohibition, 
which was lost by a vote only one-eleventh as 
large as the present majority against the 
saloon. Let us hope that this prohibition 
sentiment and the prohibition vote will 
speedily lead to the enactment of state pro- 
hibition in Vermont. 

New Hampshire, like Vermont, decided to 
try license instead of prohibition, largely on 
the plea that since the prohibitory law is 
violated it would be better to try some form 
of license, but it has been amply proved that 
there is more violation of law under license 
than under prohibition. Drunkenness, pov- 
erty and crime have rapidly increased. There 
[31] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

can be no better way to make a just com- 
parison between the relative value of pro- 
hibition and license than to give statistics of 
conditions under prohibition and under li- 
cense in the same state. These statistics 
in favor of prohibition could be multiplied 
almost indefinitely. We give only one item. 
On April i, 1902, the last year under state 
prohibition, there were at the Hillsboro coun- 
ty farm 19 prisoners for drunkenness. On 
April 1, 1906, under the present license sys- 
tem, there were 105. The license law in New 
Hampshire went into effect in June, 1903. 
During the last year of prohibition, 1901- 
1902, there were committed to the county 
house of correction in Merrimac county 169 
prisoners. During the last year under li- 
cense there have been committed 659 prison- 
ers, an increase of 290 per cent. 

No compromise short of absolute freedom 
for the liquor traffic will ever be satisfactory 
to the liquor fraternity; no course short of 
absolute prohibition will ever control the 
liquor traffic. With an ever deepening belief 
in the righteousness of the prohibitory law, I 
earnestly recommend that in each state earn- 
est, persistent efforts shall be made for state 
[32] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

prohibition to make way for our highest ideal, 
which ideal is sure to be a reality some day, 
namely, the national prohibition of the manu- 
facture, importation, and sale of alcoholic 
liquors for beverage purposes. 

The question is often asked — oftener by 
women than by men — " Why not change the 
plan of the W. C. T. U. so that men may be 
admitted as members on the same basis as 
women?" We reply that there is still need 
of a separate organization of women, and the 
influences that led to the organization of a 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union still 
abide and abound. We should evermore 
recognize with gratitude the great and gra- 
cious help given to our women everywhere by 
the clergy, and by other men who occupy 
positions of power, as well as by many men of 
the rank and file without whose brotherly aid 
our organization could never have advanced 
to the place it occupies at the present time. 
While it is true that "new occasions teach 
new duties," I think the time has not yet 
come for a change in the W. C. T. U. system 
of membership. 

Love of country and the reverence for the 
country's flag is implanted in the hearts of all 
[33] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

patriots, and women are no less patriots than 
men. No true patriot could fail to resent the 
action of greedy men, who, thinking the asso- 
ciation of the flag with their business enter- 
prises would be a good advertisement, have in 
times past thus used the flag even to the ex- 
tent of helping to advertise questionable 
schemes and disreputable business. Some of 
the states have enacted laws which forbid 
placing upon a United States flag any in- 
scription, device, advertisement or notice ; and 
it makes no difference whether the flag is public 
or private property, it cannot be defaced, de- 
filed or trampled upon. Formerly the name of 
the regiment was inscribed upon the national 
colors carried by troops, but present army 
regulations require that the flag be kept clear 
of all inscriptions and that the name of the 
regiment be placed upon a silver ring which 
is attached to the staff of the color. Un- 
doubtedly there is sentiment enough in our 
country, when that sentiment can be utilized, 
to lead to the enactment of a law which shall 
prevent the United States flag from floating 
over any brewery, distillery or saloon. In 
fact, the agitation for the enactment of such a 
law would hasten the time when there shall 
be no such disgraceful place within our bor- 
[34] 



What Lillian M. N.StevensSaid 

ders for even a black flag to float over, much 
less our glorious Stars and Stripes. 

Miss Willard once said, "The strength and 
glory of the W. C. T. U. is its organic inde- 
pendence and separateness from every other 
form of organization. Entangling alliance 
would work its downfall and that right 
speedily/ ' It is well for us in our organiza- 
tion work to carefully differentiate between 
co-operation, merging, and affiliation. The 
W. C. T. U. gladly welcomes the co-operation 
of any society with similar purposes and aims 
as our own, and when proper occasion pre- 
sents we should be desirous and willing to 
co-operate with friendly organizations. This 
co-operation does not call for any compro- 
mises, any merging, any receding, any re- 
linquishment of our vast W. C. T. U. structure 
and its machinery, all of which we have 
created because it was necessary to have it to 
carry out our organization plans and pur- 
poses. May we never fail to recognize the 
achievements of other societies. There 
should go from this Convention words of 
praise and gratitude to all who stand for the 
complete overthrow of the license system in 
every state and in the nation. 
[35] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

What a different place this world would be, 
how different would be our work, if selfish- 
ness were cast out of the human heart, and 
love, the most inexorable force for good in all 
the world, were implanted there in its stead. 
By this I mean that love which is akin to God 
and heaven, which exemplified leads to that 
love-life which seeks not its own and endures 
all things. 

NASHVILLE, TENN., NOVEMBER, 1907 

The claim is sometimes made that prohibi- 
tion is an infringement upon the personal 
liberties of the people. The same might be 
claimed of all laws enacted for the people's 
protection, especially of the laws to prevent 
the spread of contagious diseases. The per- 
sonal liberty of the people of Maine was not 
curtailed in 1851 by the adoption of prohibi- 
tion. Every just and sane person ought to be 
able to understand that it is no yielding of 
personal liberty when provision is made for 
the protection of the people of all classes and 
conditions from that which to many of the 
classes and conditions has been proved to be 
an irresistible peril. 

The claim that Maine assumed to make men 
sober by law is most absurd. Prohibition 
[36] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

aims to prevent people from being made 
drunkards by law. Men are naturally sober. 
It takes the saloon and the hotel bar and other 
forms of liquor selling to make them drunk- 
ards. These places shall not exist, says the 
prohibitory law. 

It is claimed that the prohibitory law 
creates hypocrisy. This may be said of all 
laws. The murderer and the robber and in- 
cendiary are not very open and frank in their 
ways. There is more hypocritical illegal sell- 
ing in license states than in Maine; for every 
joint or blind tiger under prohibition in Maine, 
there are sixteen blind tigers in license New 
York plus twenty-seven thousand state li- 
censed saloons. 

It is said that the prohibitory law forces 
men to drink impure, poisonous liquors. The 
most poisonous ingredient in alcoholic liquors 
is the alcohol itself. The state chemist of 
Minnesota has recently stated that an ex- 
amination of liquors said to be adulterated 
revealed that whether pure or blended they 
contain no poison so bad as the alcohol itself; 
and Professor Wiley, chief chemist of the Agri- 
culture Department, says: " Eighty -five per 
cent of the whisky sold in the United States is 
[37] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

adulterated with harmful chemicals." Hence 
it is plainly shown that adulterated liquors 
are sold elsewhere than in prohibition states. 
I have studied in every state all of the laws 
enacted to apply to the liquor traffic and have 
abundant testimony to prove that prohibition 
at its worst is better than any form of license 
at its best. 

What is true of the results of prohibition in 
Maine is equally true in Kansas and North 
Dakota and everywhere that prohibition pre- 
vails. The repeal of the prohibitory law in 
New Hampshire and Vermont seemed to the 
temperance advocates to be a great calamity, 
but the change has forcefully and graphically 
demonstrated that the prohibitory law is not 
violated as much as is a license law and that 
license substituted for prohibition greatly in- 
creases drunkenness and crime. 

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
in its pledge of total abstinence rightly classes 
together all distilled, fermented and malt 
liquors, including wine, beer and cider. In all 
probability the aggressive work of the brew- 
ing interests to convince people of the utility 
and harmlessness of beer will make no head- 
way; at least it will not among intelligent, 
[38] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens Said 

well-informed people, for it is a well-known 
fact that beer produces the most deplorable 
kind of drunkenness and that the most 
dangerous drunkards are the beer drinkers — 
most dangerous as criminals and most danger- 
ous in hereditary transmission of evil ten- 
dencies. 

Hereditary appetites, hereditary customs 
and hereditary thoughts tend to perpetuate 
the drink curse. It is hard for many to realize 
that the poison contained in the wine spar- 
kling in the expensive, ornamented goblet is 
the same as the poison in the whisky drunk 
from the rusty tin cup. The language of the 
officer and coroner varies somewhat according 
to the case under investigation, whether it be 
up town, or down in the slums. Notwith- 
standing all this and much more that is done 
to protect the better classes from exposure, 
there is a great deal that wealth, friends and 
genius cannot conceal. It is easier for us to 
think of the uncouth, illiterate hod-carrier 
under the influence of drink than to credit the 
fact that the brilliant intellect of the Ettrick 
Shepherd was overthrown by it. It is hard to 
realize that statesman, orator, dramatist, poet 
— Richard Sheridan, Hartley Coleridge, Ed- 
[39] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

mund Kean, Charles Lamb, William Pitt, By- 
ron and Poe, and many of later day name and 
fame — have been victims of alcoholic drink. 
According to the W. C. T. U. declaration of 
principles, we believe that the habits of men 
and women should be an example, safe and 
beneficent, for every one to follow. The ex- 
ample of total abstinence is certainly safe and 
beneficent. No person lives to-day who 
regrets that he has led a life of total absti- 
nence. The example of one who takes a 
drink, no matter how high his position, is 
unsafe and unprofitable; and there are count- 
less numbers who regret that they ever fol- 
lowed such an example. It is to be regretted 
that any one, especially one in a position of 
influence, should be unmindful of the great 
and grave responsibility resting upon him in 
relation to a question so heavily fraught with 
the weal or woe of the people. In this con- 
nection, we make grateful mention of Prince 
Wilhelm of Sweden who, while in the center of 
high social life at Newport, R. I., last August, 
requested that those who entertained him 
should not introduce wine or other alcoholic 
drinks. 

All right-minded people agree that home is 
[40] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

the citadel of woman's influence and power. 
Since so much that is vital centers in the home 
and radiates from it, women, whether they 
will or not, are in active and close touch with 
that which goes on outside the home — in the 
schools, the church , in society, and the state. 
The question of how women shall do their 
duty in these lines would receive a variety of 
replies; but it is generally conceded that they 
are needed in the church, and more generally 
than ever before, women's voices and opinions 
are there heard. About 330,000 women in 
our country are teachers — nine times as 
many as the men who pursue this vocation. 
No one will deny that women are needed as 
teachers; and as members of school boards 
they have been influential in promoting the 
supreme interests of the school. Whenever 
women have been allowed to vote for mem- 
bers of the school board or on the school ques- 
tion, their votes have been cast for the man or 
woman who stood for those measures that 
were needed to promote the highest moral and 
physical, as well as mental, welfare of the 
pupils. It is coming to be more and more 
apparent that women should have the privi- 
lege of using their potent influence for the pro- 
tection of the home and the improvement of 
[41] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

its necessary adjuncts. One by one the uni- 
versities and colleges have opened their doors 
to women until it can be said that equal 
privileges are granted in the field of higher 
education. It has come to pass as naturally 
as morning follows night that there are wom- 
en in the professions, and thousands upon 
thousands of women wage-earners — women 
in business. In far too many cases they have 
been forced into these positions by stern 
necessity; sometimes being obliged to support 
the husband and the children, or the father 
and the mother. There is to-day a larger 
company than ever before of those, who, to 
use the apt expression of Miss Willard, " be- 
lieve in the perfect equality of men and wom- 
en before the law and the Lord; that is, in the 
household of government and in the house- 
hold of faith." 

The mission of the W. C. T. U. is a holy, 
far-reaching service; it goes out to all those 
who have heard the cry of the world, and 
joins with them in seeking to bring peace and 
joy in place of strife and sorrow. It is a 
service which calls for deepened consecration, 
infinite fortitude, and God-like faith. We 
must go forward with a steady step, and may 
[42] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens S aid 

it not be said of any of us that "some light 
which had been entrusted to our care failed 
on a certain stormy night to shine beside the 
harbor head." Rather let us raise the beacon 
high, knowing there are no lights to spare. 
To be sure, these late days are rich in fulfill- 
ment, but they are far more rich in promise. 
As children of God, believing in His sure 
promises, striving to walk with Christ, let us 
press on toward the realization of the great 
hope within our souls, that the black clouds 
caused by intemperance shall roll away. 
Then God's clear sunlight shall, like His glory, 
fill the sky and shine upon a nation whose 
people can sing with more meaningf ulness than 
ever before, "All hail the power of Jesus' 
name, we'll crown Him Lord of all." 



DENVER, COLO., OCTOBER, 1908 

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
is not only anti-saloon, but anti-brewery, 
anti-distillery, anti any form of alcoholic 
liquor-making or liquor-selling for beverage 
purposes. The trade hates and fears a law 
that closes the saloons. It hates and fears 
still more the law that closes the saloon, the 
[43] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens S aid 

brewery, and the distillery. One of the most 
astute liquor politicians in the country, who 
was one of the speakers at the Model License 
League Convention at Louisville last June, said 
in effect that the banishment of the saloon crip- 
pled their business, but the banishment of the 
brewery and distillery would kill their business. 

If it is right to sell intoxicating drink, then 
all persons should have the same freedom to 
sell it that they have to sell dry goods, gro- 
ceries or any other desirable commodity. If 
it is not right to sell intoxicating drink, no 
locality or state should give any one legal per- 
mission to do a moral wrong. We believe 
that license in any form is wrong in principle; 
that the sale of strong drink is iniquitous; that 
the evils resultant from it are appalling. The 
saloon has no redeeming feature. It has in it 
no saving grace, and to say it is the poor man's 
club is a libel upon the poor man unless he is a 
toper. It is the essence of ridicule, for in 
manifold cases the saloon has robbed the man 
of his money and his reputation and made him 
poor indeed. We are opposed to all forms 
of license — high, low, dispensary, segrega- 
tion or any other kind that the Model License 
League may model. We are opposed to li- 
[44] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

cense because we do not wish to give the sa- 
loon any chance to live, for at what is called 
its "best" it is a law-breaking, home-ruining, 
life-blighting institution. We are, in our 
country at least, too far advanced to spend 
much time in talking about license except in a 
way that will help the uninformed who are not 
fully equipped to meet the assertions of the 
license advocates. 

Total abstinence sentiment and practice 
increase in about the same proportion as do 
prohibition sentiment and territory. We 
know there are some people — comparatively 
few, however — who themselves abstain because 
they know it is for their personal well-being 
so to do; but they are not at all concerned 
about the welfare of others. Now and then 
we hear of a saloonkeeper who knows better 
than to taste the stuff he gladly deals out, and 
there are occasional advertisements asking 
for bartenders who are total abstainers; but as 
a rule total abstainers believe in prohibition 
not only as applied to their own habits but 
also as extended to the community and to the 
state. On the other hand, there are some, and 
they are comparatively few, who are prohibi- 
tionists while not themselves total abstainers. 
[45] 



W hat Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

Apparently they believe that others need to 
be protected from what they feel they can use 
with safety. There is a still larger class who 
themselves drink and think drinking places 
should not be prohibited; but happily there 
is another and a vast increasing company who 
know that alcohol is good for no one, and who 
therefore consistently themselves abstain and 
believe that they are in a large degree their 
brothers' and sisters' keepers. This class 
believes that alcohol is a poison and not a food 
and is neither beneficial nor necessary for 
beverage purposes. They know that alco- 
holic drink not only affects the drinker, but 
often entails upon his descendants an heredi- 
tary appetite, chronic degeneration, epilepsy, 
idiocy and insanity. They know from an 
economic standpoint that strong drink is a 
" waste of wealth." 

The claim of the saloon element that license 
and liberty are synonymous is true to the ex- 
tent that license gives "liberty" to do wrong; 
to rob a man of his reason, conscience and 
will; to rob his family of love, happiness and 
comfort ; to fill the almshouses, jails and pris- 
ons with saloon victims. The heart of hu- 
manity is too kind, the wisdom of the people 
[46] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens Said 

too great to be misled by the sophistries of the 
organized liquor interests of this country. 

"The voice of warning has gone abroad, 
The time grows ripe for the hour of God." 

The heathen (the liquor tribe) will rage a 
while longer; but God is on His throne; He 
has uttered His voice; the liquor traffic is 
doomed to destruction. 

' * Prohibition in the United States has be- 
come not merely a great issue but an actual 
atmosphere/' writes an Englishman who 
lately has visited America. The truth of this 
is clearly demonstrated through the attitude 
of the newspapers and magazines. A goodly 
number of contributions and editorials are 
carefully and honestly prepared by those who 
are not purchasable with liquor money. The 
press to a great extent is preacher, teacher and 
guide, and we are glad that so much of what 
is good and will abide filters through this 
great avenue of public influence. 

The statement has been made that news- 
papers and journals which take liquor adver- 
tisements are in honor (dishonor) bound not 
to say anything against the liquor trade. 
This may have been the rule, but in late 
[47] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

months it has not been adhered to very strict- 
ly. There always have been some newspapers 
which would not sell out to the liquor trade, 
and their number is now fast increasing. The 
most despicable class of liquor advertising is 
that which appears in the columns usually 
devoted to contributed and editorial matter. 
Sometimes the reading advertisements, which 
we know are concocted and paid for by the 
liquor organizations, cover a full page. In 
justice to the papers, we should remember 
that some of them are now devoting full pages 
to illustrated temperance articles. They do 
this not for money but because the reading 
public wishes to know the facts concerning 
the progress of the temperance reform. 

At the close of a friendly article on woman 
suffrage, which lately appeared in a leading 
journal, was the question, "Will home — 
woman's kingdom — suffer in her eager effort 
to save her country ?" This leads us to ask 
another question. Is it love of country or 
love of home that leads the average woman, 
or at least the average W. C. T. U. woman, to 
desire the right of franchise? Is it not rather 
love for both and a desire to serve both, and 
are not the two interests closely intertwined? 
[48] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

There are comparatively few men who serve 
in public offices; and many of these public 
official duties are not as arduous or restrictive 
as are the duties of many vocations in which 
women, in order to earn their daily bread, 
have to engage. The woman who can go to 
the polls and cast her ballot against the sa- 
loon finds it a far simpler and pleasanter task 
and one requiring much less time than the 
arduous task of ministering in her own home 
or in some other home or in some slum abode 
called a home, even for a day, to some degen- 
erate victim of the saloon. 

The temperance fraternity consists of all 
temperance organizations, including church 
temperance societies, and all advocates of and 
believers in total abstinence and prohibition. 
The W. C. T. U. rejoices in the achievements 
of all temperance societies — the Good Tem- 
plars, the Anti-Saloon League, the Catholic 
Total Abstinence Union, the National Uni- 
tarian Temperance Society, the Sons of 
Temperance, the Rechabites and others. 
Each society in its own way is helping to bring 
the final victory. We express our profound 
gratitude to the Prohibition Party and to 
those men everywhere who have stood by the 
[49] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S a id 

prohibition cause as the supreme issue in 
politics, and whose ballots have borne and 
will continue to bear unwavering testimony 
to their belief in prohibition. 

America is spoken of as the new country, 
but a brilliant out-of-country writer declares 
that this is a misnomer, for America is not 
and never was young; that she sprang ready- 
made from the head of a pilgrim father and 
so is the oldest of God's creatures. If this 
writer is correct, and America really is the 
fatherland, it may account in some degree for 
the fact that so many not suited with condi- 
tions in their own lands turn toward America 
as to a parent. At any rate a million and a 
quarter came over to us in 1907 and other 
millions are rapidly following. 

"They come, they come, one treads the other's heel, 
And some we laugh and some we weep to see, 
And some we fear; but in the throng we feel 
The mighty throb of our own destiny. 

"Outstretched their hands to take whate'er we give, 
Honor, dishonor, daily bread or bane; 
Not theirs to choose how we may bid them live — 
But what we give we shall receive again." 

If we believe this to be true, then we must 
feel an enormous weight of responsibility ; and 
[50] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

we rejoice that we have a department of Work 
among Foreign-Speaking People, and con- 
nected with it a W. C. T. U. missionary at 
Ellis Island. We are endeavoring as far as 
possible to influence aright these people. The 
great mass of them do not mean to be bad, but 
they have misshapen ideas, if indeed their 
ideas are shaped at all, as to rights and duties 
in relation to the community and to the gov- 
ernment. How to treat them is a mighty 
question heavily fraught with weal or woe to 
those who come and to those to whom they 
come. 

There must be ever deepening problems 
connected with a great reform movement ; yet 
they are problems which heighten as they 
deepen, for all righteous reforms are founded 
upon Divine principles; and since we know 
that the Divine spirit of love and of might is 
abroad, we cannot fail to have faith in our 
mission; a faith which links humanity to 
Divinity, a faith which demands steadfast, 
patient work for humanity in the name of 
humanity's Christ. In the Crusade days 
the prayer arose for the " quickening breath 
that new-creates the soul." In the days and 
years which have followed, through the 
[51] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

quickening power of God, the conscience of 
the people has awakened. The victory over 
the liquor traffic is not yet complete, but 

"Upon the hilltops glistens 
The morning glow for which we wait and long; 

O true hearts, pause and listen; 
Around you soon shall sweep the victory song; 
Short is the work when God puts forth His power, 
Then patient watch with Christ this morning hour." 



OMAHA, NEBRASKA, OCTOBER, 1909 

There is in the public mind a clearer under- 
standing than ever before concerning the rela- 
tion of total abstinence to prohibition. The 
well-known decision of the Supreme Court has, 
under this later light, a new meaning and 
force. " No legislature can bargain away the 
public health or the public morals. The 
people themselves cannot do it, much less 
their servants. ,, All well-meaning, intelli- 
gent people know that liquor drinking is 
demoralizing; that it is destructive to health 
and happiness, to commercial and industrial 
efficiency. 

In proof of this let us note the action of a 
few of the great business corporations. While 
state and community are saying, "You shall 
[52] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

not sell," employers are saying to their em- 
ployees, "You shall not drink/ ' According to 
the logic of the liquor fraternity such action is 
a grave interference with personal liberty. 
'The coal-mining department of the United 
States Steel Corporation, the largest business 
corporation in the world, recently has de- 
clared that it will employ no man who drinks 
intoxicating liquors. A decision like this 
accounts for the falling off in beer sales as was 
reported from Pittsburgh — a decrease in one 
year of 333,000 barrels. 

Sane people of to-day do not think the 
laborer is oppressed by being thus prohibited 
from drinking, but on the contrary know that 
his efficiency, health, wealth and happiness 
are all augmented. While the benefit to the 
employer is great, the benefit to the employed 
is much greater. 

The attitude of the railroad companies in 
regard to the use of drink by their employees 
is well known. In fact, it is claimed that the 
railroad companies took the initiative in the 
great movement of requiring total abstinence 
of employees, either all the time or when on 
duty. It is conservatively estimated that 90 
per cent of the railways, 79 per cent of the 
manufacturers, 80 per cent of trades and 72 
[53] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

per cent of agriculturists discriminate against 
workmen who drink. 

Every prohibition state and every prohibi- 
tion locality furnishes abundant proof that 
prohibition reduces drunkenness and crime 
and increases financial prosperity. Drunken- 
ness is produced by liquor drinking. If pro- 
hibition did not reduce the amount of liquor 
sold and consumed and drank, liquor makers, 
liquor dealers and their sympathizers would 
not be so unalterably opposed to prohibition, 
raising vast sums of money to overthrow it 
wherever adopted and also to prevent its 
extension. 

The Model License League is the chief of 
all the liquor organizations of to-day, and 
plainly represents a much frightened set of 
people. Their efforts to reform the liquor 
business and to make license laws models of 
anything respectable will meet with the same 
ultimate result as did Bishop Potter's model 
saloon. The liquor seller (while he continues 
to sell) never can be reconstructed so that 
he will be admitted to those churches from 
which he has been excluded; neither will the 
Odd Fellows or tlfe Masons, or many other 
orders which have ruled out the liquor sellers, 
[54] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

remove the ban against them because the word 
"model" has been prefixed to license. Some 
say the Model License League is too late with 
its saving propositions, but the W. C. T. U. 
declares that there never has been and never 
can be any saving grace for the license system ; 
that it is fundamentally wrong, essentially 
sinful, diabolically cruel in its methods and 
its results, and whatever form or name it 
takes, whether high license or low license, 
segregration, dispensary or Gothenberg, it is, 
like the liquor business itself, doomed to de- 
struction. 

The church of the twentieth century realizes, 
as the church of even a quarter of a century 
ago did not, that if the people who constitute 
the church are to be obedient to their divine 
commission and "take up the stumbling block 
out of the way of the people," they must wage 
a holy warfare against the drink habit, the 
saloon, and all the iniquitous license system. 
Not only personal salvation but also civic, 
commercial and legislative salvation are the 
watchwords of the church of to-day. This is 
evidenced by the attitude of church papers 
and the declarations of recent church as- 
semblies. 

[55] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

"How could the necessary revenue to meet 
the government expenses be raised if the 
liquor tax should be discontinued ?" is the 
question frequently asked by the liquor fra- 
ternity, which boasts of its helpfulness to the 
United States government. Sometimes others 
besides those interested in the liquor business 
ask a similar question. This interrogation 
has been answered in a most practical way by 
the prohibition states, which, after the banish- 
ment of the breweries, distilleries and saloons, 
have prospered as never before, thus demon- 
strating to the world the truth of Gladstone's 
declaration, "Give us a sober people and the 
revenue will take care of itself.' ' We need 
have no uneasiness about the poverty or bank- 
ruptcy that would come to the United States 
should the internal revenue tax be abolished, 
as it surely will be some day, and that day 
perhaps not so very far distant. The most 
valuable asset of any state or any nation is its 
people. The wisest financiering is that which 
will save the people from drunkenness, pover- 
ty, impurity and crime — all the natural 
products of the liquor traffic. Surely state or 
nation can make no mistake, even from a 
monetary standpoint, in dissociating itself 
from such a business. 

[56] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s Said 

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
rejoices in the advance and the achievements 
of all temperance organizations and when it 
can consistently work in co-operation with 
them it is glad to do so. But the W. C. T. U. 
should never compromise its principles nor 
lose its individuality during a campaign or at 
any other time. The W. C. T. U. has proved 
its ability to work and to win, and we should 
gladly welcome co-operation but decline to 
merge or affiliate, always holding high our 
own banners, and cheering on all kindred 
societies. The use of the W. C. T. U. name 
and machinery is often solicited by various 
societies, and is sometimes granted by unions 
whose members do not seem to understand 
that to carry out the "Do Every thing* ' 
methods of the W. C. T. U. calls for all the 
temperance work a local union can do or is re- 
quired to do. 

"It shall be better that I lived/ ' Frances 
E. Willard spoke these words early in life 
after an illness from which it was thought she 
would not recover. The world well knows 
how gloriously fulfilled was this pronounce- 
ment, and while all cannot rise to such heights 
of achievement as did Miss Willard, it is with- 
[57] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

in the power of all to enlighten, to uplift and 
to comfort. The Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union has furnished a new inspiration 
of Christian faith, and because of this faith, 
wrought out in deeds of love and self-sacrifice, 
cheer and hope have come to many a heart 
and home, dispelling darkness and despair. 
If the W. C. T. U. is true to its holy birth- 
right, and to the name it bears, it must con- 
tinue to proclaim a gospel which is divine — 
which is triumphant. 



BALTIMORE, MD., NOVEMBER, 1910 

There is no home in any country that is 
happier or more prosperous because one or 
more of the family uses strong drink; but 
there are hundreds of thousands of homes from 
which alcoholic liquors have driven peace, 
comfort and happiness, and substituted dis- 
cord, squalor and misery; and there are 
thousands of other homes darkened by the 
drink curse — homes where pride and wealth 
still reign. The sad-faced mother hides from 
the world her crushing sorrow, unless per- 
chance the silence is broken as in the case of a 
mother who recently said to a friend, "My 
[58] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

terrible grief is enhanced by the fact that I 
permitted in the home into which came the 
blessing of a little son, the use of that which 
has ruined my boy." Oh, that all might 
understand that it is love of home, that it is 
love of sweet mothers and broken-hearted 
wives, and a burning desire to have happy 
homes everywhere that has brought together 
this morning women from every section of our 
land! You know how drink curses innocent 
children, for in their sore need you have pro- 
vided for them. You know how drink causes 
crime because you have ministered to those in 
prison, brought there through the use of strong 
drink. You know that reason is permanently 
dethroned by alcohol because you are stu- 
dents of the causes of insanity. 

In every civilized land there is an increasing 
interest in the subject of total abstinence. 
This sentiment is aroused by those who be- 
lieve in conservation of the life, health and 
happiness of the people ; by those who are not 
only interested in the poisonous mosquito 
and fly, bad water, bad food and bad air, but 
who likewise believe that alcohol is a poison 
and its victims more numerous than those of 
any other pestilence. 

[59] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

Theoretically, prohibition is right; other- 
wise the Ten Commandments should not have 
been given and laws prohibiting murder, theft, 
forgery, lotteries, etc., should never have been 
enacted. Practically, prohibition is successful, 
although prohibition at its best can never be 
realized in any state until all states have a 
prohibitory law or until the United States 
government gives to prohibitory territory just 
and adequate protection from the invasions 
of the liquor fraternity. 

One of the late schemes of the liquor men is 
by ridicule and other low devices to build up 
barriers between the southern and northern 
temperance people; but they will not succeed. 
True temperance people know no dividing 
line, and there is none. We evermore have 
reason to thank and to love the women of the 
South. When their hearts were wounded and 
aching because of all they had suffered and all 
they had lost, they received with loving kind- 
ness .a northern woman, Frances E. Willard, 
and, clasping hands with her and with the 
women of the entire land, became a great 
power in the National Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union. We rejoice that the 
South is now leading in temperance reform. 
[60] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S a id 

We need not be at all discouraged by the 
report that the falling off in the consumption 
of liquor in 1908 and 1909 will be nearly wiped 
out by the gains in the consumption during 
the year 19 10. Instead of losing courage we 
should be all the more deeply impressed with 
the fact that never in the history of the tem- 
perance reform have the liquor fraternity been 
so desperately alert as during the last months. 
They have expended enormous sums of mon- 
ey for anti-prohibition and anti-total absti- 
nence speakers, for sending out their literature 
to every locality and to every library which 
would take it, to say nothing of the many 
other ways well known to the trade. We 
should remember that comparatively few of 
the million immigrants who have come to our 
shores during the year bring with them tem- 
perance ideas and total abstinence habits. 
The temperance reform has great obstacles to 
overcome and it is well for us to consider how 
much worse the conditions would be but for the 
work of the great army of temperance people 
who are heroically battling for the complete 
overthrow of the liquor traffic, and we of the 
W. C. T. U. are sure of ultimate victory. How 
soon depends upon our faith, our courage, 
our steadfastness and our holy determination. 
[61] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

True manliness and true womanliness will 
be permanently maintained, not through the 
supremacy of either sex, but by equality and 
justice to all irrespective of sex. This is the 
keynote to-day of the woman suffrage move- 
ment. 

We stand between the years, the past and 
the future. We have thanksgiving in our 
hearts for the comradeship, the opportunities, 
the achievements and the triumphs of the 
past. We have courage for the future, and 
for the year with all its wonderful possibilities 
just now before us. Let us go forward with 
patient, dauntless effort, with " faith which is 
but hope grown wise," and with love in har- 
mony with the unconquerable love of God. 
We have our place on board the great ship of 
the world. Sometimes we are tossed on the 
stormy, billowy sea, and in the black, mid- 
night darkness great fears beset us. Again 
the spacious firmament glows with sunshine 
and with gleaming stars, and we catch radiant 
visions of guidance and of inspiration, of 
promise and fulfillment. Through storm or 
through sunshine, the tide of God's omnipo- 
tence is ever more bearing the mighty ship 
onward. Over the entrance of the desired 
[62] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

haven we are divinely destined to enter are 
emblazoned in living light, the heavenly, yet 
human words, Love, Peace, Victory! 



MILWAUKEE, WIS., OCTOBER, 1911 

In contemplating the prohibition situation 
in our country, permit me to adapt a para- 
graph from a famous classic: We believe that 
this government cannot permanently endure 
half license and half prohibition. 

We do not expect the nation will be de- 
stroyed on this great question, but we do ex- 
pect it will cease to be divided. It will be- 
come the one thing or the other — either the 
license advocates will push the liquor traffic 
further until it becomes alike lawful in all of 
the states and in every locality in our country, 
or the opponents of the licensed liquor traffic 
will arrest its further spread and place it where 
the public mind shall rest in the belief that it 
is in the course of ultimate extinction. 

Certainly the Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union believes that the liquor traffic 
is on the way to destruction, for, 

" The voice of warning has gone abroad, 
The time grows ripe for the hour of God." 

[63] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

The names used by the liquor advocates 
under which to do their anti-prohibition 
campaign work differ in various states. In 
Chicago, "The United Societies" is com- 
posed of brewers, distillers, liquor sellers and 
their allies. "Personal Liberty League" is a 
favorite name with the "trade" and there are 
many such societies. Oftentimes the name 
alone does not indicate the real object of the 
society; for instance, there is a society called 
the "American Merchants' and Manufac- 
turers' Association" — "organized to oppose 
the enactment of prohibitory laws." "The 
Maine Local Self -Government League" is the 
name that the liquor advocates used in Maine 
during the campaign. This name, in short, 
means License League, for at the organizing 
meeting of the anti-prohibitionists they re- 
solved to do all within their power to repeal 
the prohibitory amendment, and to work for 
the enactment of laws for the regulation and 
control of liquor selling. This society worked 
incessantly to prove that local option or some 
form of license would be better for Maine than 
prohibition. 

They joyously spread the report that dur- 
ing the last year twenty million gallons of 
liquor had been shipped into prohibition terri- 
[64] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

tory. We replied: " Forty million people are 
now living in territory which has outlawed the 
sale of liquor. This would give the average 
consumption per capita for those living in such 
territory to be one-half gallon." 

The whole amount of liquor last year 
"withdrawn for consumption" was 2,094,- 
322,884 gallons. Deducting from this the 
forty million gallons reported to be consumed 
in prohibition territory would leave forty-one 
gallons per capita used by the fifty million 
people living in license communities, instead 
of one-half gallon per capita in prohibition 
territory. 

If " prohibition territory" means only pro- 
hibitory states, then it would allow 1% gal- 
lons of liquor per capita only in prohibitory 
states, while the Government Internal Reve- 
nue Report shows that 21.86 gallons per capita 
is consumed by the people in all of the states 
including the prohibitory states. 

The license advocates claimed that local 
option in Maine would decrease drunkenness. 
The prohibition advocates replied that during 
three years under prohibition in Vermont 
there were 545 cases of intoxication in the 
courts, and in three years under local option 
[65] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens S aid 

there were 1,642, an increase of over two 
hundred per cent. The upholders of license 
quoted against prohibition the large amount 
paid in federal liquor taxes, but we replied 
that license New Jersey, with about the same 
population as prohibition Maine and pro- 
hibition Kansas combined, paid the United 
States in liquor taxes $3,470,644, while Kan- 
sas and Maine paid $102,508. Our opponents 
told of the large amount of crime in Maine. 
We replied that during five years in Maine 
there were only 33 murders, but during five 
years in high license local option Massa- 
chusetts there were 424 murders, or in propor- 
tion to population 145 murders in Massa- 
chusetts to 33 murders in Maine. The de- 
fenders of local regulation say that prohibition 
prevents financial prosperity, but we point 
with pride to the fact that there is a steady 
increase in Maine's valuation, at the rate the 
past year of more than twenty million dol- 
lars; and that the amount in the saving in- 
stitutions of the state, counting in the women 
and the children, is now $225 per capita. 
When they tell us that the cities want local 
option we reply, "The state should control the 
cities instead of allowing the cities to control the 
state" We ask the Maine mothers where 
[66] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

they desire protection for their boys and they 
earnestly reply, "We want it in the cities as 
well as in the towns. We want it wherever 
our boys are, and our boys are in every part of 
the state/ ' 

Even if we had a majority of sixty thousand 
for prohibition the law would not annihilate 
the traffic nor altogether eliminate liquor 
selling in Maine. The same sanity of reason- 
ing applied to other laws should also be 
applied to the laws against liquor selling. 
State-wide prohibition cannot be as effective 
as desired by temperance people so long as 
liquor is manufactured and legally sold in 
adjacent states or in any state. Prohibition 
at its best can never be realized in any state 
until the United States government gives to 
prohibition territory just and adequate pro- 
tection from the invasions of the liquor traffic. 

Ever since the glorious dawn of the Crusade 
morning an ever increasing multitude of 
women has been making the toilsome yet 
gladsome ascent toward the "mountain peaks 
which are near the stars of light." To-day 
more clearly than ever before we see the light 
of truth concerning the poison alcohol, the 
light of truth concerning the best methods to 
[67] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

stay its ravaging progress. Storm clouds 
which gather around the pathway of the tem- 
perance reformer the higher he ascends, are 
destined to scatter and disappear as the 
" faith that makes faithful' ' and "the love 
that endureth all things" link our endeavor 
more closely to the Divine purpose and the 
Divine will ; to that Divinity which is in deed 
and in truth the "Light of the World." 



PORTLAND, ORE., OCTOBER, 1912 

The active, incessant, and united opposition 
of the liquor trade to a prohibitory law is the 
incontrovertible proof that prohibition pro- 
hibits, and that a prohibitory law is the best 
law to apply to the liquor traffic. 

When temperance people are derisively told 
that the report of the Commissioner of Inter- 
nal Revenue shows an increase in the output 
of the brewers and the distillers, we must con- 
sider the increasing number of immigrants 
who come to our country with their own ideas 
of liquor drinking. The quantity of beer con- 
sumed per capita in the United States is not 
as great as in Belgium, the United Kingdom, 
Germany or Denmark; and our per capita 
[68] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

consumption of distilled liquor is less than that 
of Denmark, Hungary, Austria, France, the 
Netherlands, and Sweden. The quantity of 
wine consumed in the United States is less per 
capita than in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, 
Switzerland, Austria, and Hungary. We 
should consider how much worse conditions 
would be in the United States were it not for 
the activity of the temperance people of our 
country. We understand there is in the 
liquor warehouses an immense amount of 
liquor which has not yet been distributed, but 
which is reckoned in the Internal Revenue 
Report. 

The editorial declarations of some of the 
great daily newspapers will have immense 
weight with some men of affairs who scorn the 
assertions of the temperance reformers. The 
New York Tribune makes the acknowledgment 
that prohibition prohibits quite as well as 
license regulates; and admits that "police 
administrations fall down in the attempt to 
restrict illicit selling of liquors in any com- 
munity where the traffic is licensed/ ' This 
influential metropolitan daily also acknowl- 
edges that prohibition throws the liquor busi- 
ness into disrepute, clears the main thorough- 
[69] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

fares of saloons, and removes them from the 
sight of the young, who are taught that the 
business is not only outlawed but is utterly 
disreputable. The fact that liquor selling 
is upheld by the municipality and the state 
often makes it extremely difficult for a 
mother to convince her son that the liquor 
trade is always wrong and never can be 
made right. 

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
is neither a sectarian nor a partisan organiza- 
tion. Each member is free to choose her own 
church and her own party. While the Wom- 
an's Christian Temperance Union women, in 
some of the northern states, have been using 
their influence for the election of republican 
candidates who stood for state-wide prohibi- 
tion on a prohibition platform, the W. C. T. 
U. of some of the southern states have by the 
same token worked for the election of demo- 
cratic candidates. A careful study of the 
national platforms reveals that only one party 
recognizes the evils of the liquor traffic and 
declares that it should be destroyed. While 
some white-ribboners still have hope that the 
old national parties, and the new national 
party, will redeem themselves from the onus 
[70] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

of favoring the mighty vested interests of the 
liquor traffic having a combined capital of a 
thousand million dollars, others regard the 
national prohibition party as the party which 
is to lead the people out of the wilderness of 
strong drink. 

I venture to say that no organization dur- 
ing the last thirty years has created more total 
abstinence and prohibition sentiment than has 
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 
Let us continue our steady, onward march, 
"never doubting clouds will break/' and that 
some day there will be glorious, victorious 
sunlight. The time will come when no man 
worthy of respect, or of official position, will 
class the brewer as a reputable citizen, even 
though he lives in a palace and his wife wears 
a golden crown ! The time will come when no 
Brewers' Congress will be able to count among 
its speakers and sympathizers any man offi- 
cially connected with the United States Gov- 
ernment. The time will come when the 
United States Internal Revenue Commis- 
sioner will not be welcomed by a convention 
of liquor makers and liquor dealers — aye, 
the time will come when the abominable liquor 
revenue system of to-day will be abolished, 
[71] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e n s S aid 

and the United States Government will have 
ceased to be a partner in the liquor business. 
The time will come when the party that de- 
clares for statewide prohibition will be the 
dominant party in every state, and the 
national prohibition of the importation, man- 
ufacture, and sale of alcoholic beverages will 
be the law of the land, with a prohibition 
administration to uphold the righteous and 
beneficent law. My faith has not grown dim 
these last twelve months, and I reiterate the 
11 Prohibition Proclamation" of last year, 
"calling to activity all temperance, prohibi- 
tion, religious, and philanthropic bodies; all 
patriotic, fraternal, and civic associations; 
and all Americans who love their country, to 
aid in placing prohibition in the constitution 
of the United States." 

The W. C. T. U. has been saying for many 
years that impurity and intemperance are 
twin evils, and that a blow aimed at one falls 
with equal force upon the other. It is un- 
mistakably evident that an aroused and en- 
lightened interest in the white slave trade 
has enabled many for the first time to see the 
heinousness of the liquor trade, and to realize 
that those who believe in the annihilation of 
[72] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

the white slave traffic and the abolishment of 
the houses of shame should, by the same to- 
ken, advocate the destruction of the liquor 
traffic. 

The International Eugenics Congress held 
last August, at the University of London, did 
not fail to recognize that alcoholic beverages 
have a damaging effect upon parental and 
child life, thus constituting a drawback to the 
object and aim of the society, namely, the 
improvement of the race. Some of the most 
noted speakers of this Congress urged that 
there should be constant warfare against alco- 
holism which they acknowledged is crowding 
with nervous and insane patients the asylums 
and hospitals. To look at the subject of 
heredity from a national viewpoint was de- 
clared to be of supreme importance. It is 
encouraging to note that there is a general 
awakening to the consciousness that the 
civilization of to-day is not all that it should 
be ; and that so many wise men and women are 
seeking to know the reason why, in order that 
there may be a betterment of conditions. It 
was fitting that Major Leonard Darwin, the 
son of Charles Darwin, the noted evolutionist, 
should be president of this Congress. Judg- 
[73] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

ing by its initial declarations this new society 
is likely to be influential in helping the cause 
of temperance. 

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
is opposed to the Gothenburg system, one of 
the most subtle forms of licensing the liquor 
traffic. Scandinavian temperance organiza- 
tions and reformers have ceased to uphold this 
system which at first met with little opposi- 
tion from them. In fact, it was for a time up- 
held by many temperance people who now 
plainly see the fallacy, as a temperance meas- 
ure, of "disinterested management. " "The 
Breakdown of the Gothenburg System," by 
Mr. Ernest Gordon of Boston, who has lived 
for many years in Norway and Sweden, con- 
clusively shows the utter failure of this sys- 
tem — from a temperance standpoint. The 
same is true of the dispensary in South Caro- 
lina. Thirty-nine out of forty-five counties 
have abolished the dispensary, and in the 
counties where it remains there is open and 
flagrant violation of the restrictive provisions, 
with more blind tigers in the dispensary coun- 
ties than there are in the prohibition counties. 
South Carolina is still suffering from the cor- 
ruption fostered by that institution. There 
[74] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

is no danger of that state re-enacting the old 
dispensary law, for it is abhorred by the best 
citizens of the commonwealth. 

We might produce reams of testimony and 
of opinions in favor of woman's ballot from 
statesmen, educators, philanthropists, and 
reformers, but it is a significant fact that 
the great liquor trusts are ever and unalter- 
ably opposed to it, and in all the suffrage 
campaigns now waging they are our great- 
est foes. Wherever the question of licensing 
the liquor traffic is pending women should 
have the power to do their full part in 
fighting the fiercest enemy that imperils the 
home. All state W. C. T. U.'s do not see fit to 
take up the Franchise Department, and each 
state is free to choose those departments which 
will, according to the state viewpoint, best 
promote the interests for which the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union was organized. 



ASBURY PARK, N. J., OCTOBER, 1 9 13 

The National Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union has always advocated state and 
national prohibition. When Frances E. Wil- 
lard was considering whether or not she would 
[75] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev ens Said 

cast her lot with the temperance reformers she 
went straightway to Maine to confer with 
Neal Dow, the father of prohibition, and to 
see for herself the workings of a state prohibi- 
tory law. Before leaving the city of Portland, 
Miss Willard earnestly consecrated herself to 
the work of the Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union. This fact alone furnishes con- 
vincing proof that our organization, in the be- 
ginning of its career, recognized prohibition to 
be a fundamental principle of the great re- 
form. 

Year after year we have in State, National 
and World's Conventions adopted prohibition 
resolutions, and then proceeded to carry out 
the spirit and provisions of these resolutions; 
and the W. C. T. U. has been the chief factor 
in many a prohibition campaign. Long ago 
we launched the movement for National Con- 
stitutional Prohibition, and on September 10, 
191 1, at the close of the Maine campaign, 
National Constitutional Prohibition was given 
a memorable impetus by the declaration made 
in the name and on behalf of the World's and 
National W. C. T. U. 

I was not unmindful that the Christian 
Endeavorers a few months before had declared 
[76] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

for a saloonless nation in 1920, and that Con- 
gressman Richmond Pearson Hobson, of Ala- 
bama, was to introduce a National Constitu- 
tional Prohibition Amendment on the open- 
ing of Congress, Dec. 4, 191 1. This he did, as 
you well know, and he re-introduced it on 
August 5, 1913. 

For years the W. C. T. U. through its "Do 
Everything" policy has been girdling the 
gigantic tree of the liquor traffic. The tree 
that is girdled dies. The liquor traffic is 
doomed. Please note that it is not alone the 
saloon but the liquor traffic we seek to destroy. 
The W. C. T. U. is anti-liquor making, anti- 
liquor importing, anti-liquor selling in saloon, 
hotel, club, public house, private house, on rail- 
road, on shipboard, in the Gothenburg dispen- 
sary or any other place by whatsoever name 
it may be called. We make no distinction 
between distilled or fermented or malt liquors. 

There is abroad an immense sentiment in 
favor of prohibition — a sentiment often un- 
expressed, unwritten, almost unknown even 
by the possessors. To-day as never before 
the spirit of prohibition is in the air. The aim 
of to-day's civilization is to prohibit or destroy 
[77] 



What Lillian M. N.Stevens Said 

anything which is dangerous to the life of the 
people. The hookworm, the mosquito, the 
fly, infected food, unsanitary houses, factories 
or stores with unsafe foundations, are included 
in this list, and we might add war, pestilence, 
famine, hurricane and flood; yet the use of 
alcoholic drink causes greater loss of life than 
all these combined. Scientific research re- 
veals that intoxicating liquors are not a neces- 
sity for medical, scientific or pharmaceutical 
purposes. The sociologists compile statistics 
plainly showing that strong drink causes 
poverty, misery, degradation and death. The 
commercial and business corporations see its 
damaging, destructive effects and are estab- 
lishing prohibitory laws of their own forbid- 
ding the use of intoxicating liquor by their 
employees. The financiers who have thought 
liquor revenue was necessary are learning how 
to reckon profit and loss as applied to the 
liquor trade. 

Some people have honestly believed that 
our country would be bankrupt but for the 
revenue from the liquor traffic. All true, 
patriotic Americans should be ashamed to 
have it said that our government could not be 
run without revenue from the liquor traffic. 
It is regrettable that even in the dense shad- 
[78] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

ows which followed the Civil War such a plan 
of revenue was adopted. It is condemnatory 
that in the bright light of the present there are 
those who think the liquor revenue should be 
continued. 

Millions of our people are awake to the 
magnitude of the liquor business, and believe 
it should be prohibited. There are other mil- 
lions who are not educated in regard to the 
poisonous nature and the terrible effects of 
alcohol. With renewed enthusiasm the truth 
must be proclaimed from pulpit and plat- 
form, in the highway and byway, in Sunday 
school and public school, and in the home; 
not only by personal and public speech, 
but by abundant dissemination of the best 
temperance literature such as the National 
W. C. T. U. publishing house is ready to 
supply. 

Total abstinence is the bed rock upon which 
the W. C. T. U. has ever been building. The 
total abstinence pledge always has been a test 
of membership in the W. C. T. U. All of the 
forty departments have been created as a help 
in promoting total abstinence. Witness the 
pretty scene of the young mother bringing to 
[79] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

the W. C. T. U. meeting her little child, sa- 
credly dedicating him or her to a life of purity 
and of total abstinence, the child being re- 
ceived as a White Ribbon Recruit. What an 
impressive, imposing sight it would be, could 
there pass before us in joyous parade the hun- 
dreds of thousands of Loyal Temperance 
Legioners, the still greater number who are 
being taught total abstinence in the Sunday 
schools, and the twenty million youth of the 
public schools, entitled by law to be taught the 
nature of alcohol and the damaging results of 
its use. The voice of business is loudly raised 
against strong drink. The most striking il- 
lustration of this is furnished by the railroad 
companies. The American railway companies 
which employ upward of a million and a half 
of persons have a rule to the effect that the use 
of intoxicants by employees while on duty is 
prohibited. Their use and the frequenting of 
places where they are sold is sufficient cause 
for dismissal. Other lines of business are 
taking similar action, not always from philan- 
thropic motives, but for the sake of financial 
advantage, recognizing that the efficiency of 
their employees is lessened by the use of strong 
drink, even though taken in moderation. In- 
surance companies, athletic societies, and vari- 
[80] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S a id 

ous fraternal organizations are all testifying 
to the ruinous results of alcoholic beverages. 
Even the Bartenders Union in advertising for 
bartenders calls for total abstainers, saying 
that " booze hits the bartender just as strongly 
as it hits the man in front who pays for it. If 
any one wants to drink let the man on the 
other side of the bar do it." 

There are still some well-meaning tem- 
perance people who continue to advocate 
some form of regulating or licensing the 
liquor traffic. The Gothenburg system or 
disinterested management is a most subtle 
form of license, and is upheld by some who 
seem to be inherently opposed to prohibition. 
The movement has been tested in Norway and 
Sweden and it furnishes no diminution of 
drunkenness. In Gothenburg, Stockholm, 
and other cities where this law is in operation 
the companies have a monopoly of the trade 
in distilled liquors while beer shops are owned 
and conducted by private individuals. It will 
be recalled that in Sweden, two years ago, an 
overwhelming popular vote in favor of pro- 
hibition was taken, and soon after the Swedish 
government appointed a Royal Commission 
on the liquor traffic. It is reliably stated that 
[81] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

eight out of the eleven members of this Com- 
mission, after much careful investigation, are 
convinced that only by prohibition can the 
temperance problem be solved. 

Temperance people are feeling more deeply 
than ever before the gross injustice of permit- 
ting liquor advertising to be carried on by the 
use of the United States mail. Even in the 
prohibition states where liquor advertising is 
prohibited, out-of-state liquor sellers flood 
the states through the mail with their perni- 
cious advertisements, giving prices and meth- 
ods of securing the liquors. These advertise- 
ments are sometimes sent to women and often 
to college students. The United States Con- 
gress has denied the use of the mail for ad- 
vertising lottery schemes. Certainly the 
liquor business is as fraudulent and as dam- 
aging as is the lottery. 

We have reason to rejoice that a fast in- 
creasing number of newspapers and magazines 
are refusing to carry liquor advertisements, 
and many newspapers refuse to accept patent 
medicine advertisements notwithstanding the 
large financial remuneration. If our official 
paper, The Union Signal, would accept the 
[82] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

advertisements for patent medicines and 
questionable business schemes which it has 
refused, there would be no anxiety in regard 
to the financial status of the paper. I am 
happy to say that The Union Signal has been 
self-sustaining without any such undesirable 
help. Any newspaper which cannot be run 
without carrying pernicious, harmful, unsafe 
solicitations through its advertising columns 
would for morality's sake better be discon- 
tinued. 

The question of liquor advertisements going 
through the mails is more involved than might 
at first appear, because such a measure would 
apply to all newspapers which carry liquor 
advertisements. Nevertheless I earnestly 
urge that we make the endeavor to secure 
such a federal law. 

In contemplating the great campaign upon 
which we have entered, and the success of 
which we are to plan for in this Convention, 
let us never lose sight of the fact that God is at 
the forefront of every holy conflict, leading the 
host of right against the citadels of wrong. 
The call comes to us to-day with renewed em- 
phasis that we go forward. 



[831 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens S aid 

As I look into your faces, realizing that you 
represent the greatest organized moral force 
of womankind, I know you will not shun the 
struggle. I know you are strong. I know 
that when the battle is the hardest you are the 
bravest. I know you are never faint-hearted, 
but will go on and on bringing nearer each day 
the glad and glorious to-morrow of National 
Constitutional Prohibition. 



[84] 



PROCLAMATION FOR NATIONAL 
CONSTITUTIONAL PROHIBITION 

PORTLAND, MAINE, SEPTEMBER IO, I91I 

Whereas, modern science has definitely 
established for all time that alcohol is a toxin, 
the worst product of the ferment germ; a 
poison to every living tissue, destructive and 
degenerating to the human organism, striking 
at the health, character, and life of the in- 
dividual, blasting the lives of children un- 
born, and undermining the integrity of the 
family; 

Whereas, "Wine is a mocker/ ' and the 
maintenance of alcoholic beverages in the 
channels of trade always causes their wide- 
spread use among the people, entailing incal- 
culable economic loss in productiveness and 
heavy burden of taxation ; turning out multi- 
tudes of slaves and solons of drink; lowering in 
an appalling degree the average standard of 
character of citizenship, upon which the na- 
tion's institutions and liberties must rest; 
bringing about the untimely death of many 
thousands of citizens, exceeding in numbers 
all those destroyed by war, pestilence, fire, 
flood and famine combined; 
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What Lillian M. N. S t ev e ns Said 

Whereas, this terrible disease has been 
running for long centuries, and is now gnaw- 
ing at the vitals of the nations and civiliza- 
tions of to-day, gripping the governments of 
the world, and is interwoven into the political, 
commercial and social life of the peoples, con- 
stituting thus the deepest seated, most chronic 
organic disease known to the body politic and 
body social ; 

Whereas, such a disease for a permanent 
cure requires of necessity deep, continued 
organic treatment for the whole body, for 
which partial superficial devices like legaliza- 
tion and local regulation have always proved 
and from their own nature must always prove 
utterly inadequate ; 

Therefore, in the name of the World's and 
National Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union, we hereby make this Proclamation for 
a Great Crusade to carry the vital truth to the 
peoples themselves in all lands, and through 
them to place prohibition in the organic law 
of all nations and ultimately in the organic 
law of the world; and to this high end, we 
invoke the blessing and guidance of Almighty 
God and the co-operation of the men and 
women of all lands who love their fellow-men, 
and 

[86] 



What Lillian M. N. Stevens Said 

To America, the birthplace of the local. 
State, National and World's Woman's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union, we hereby proclaim, 
amid the smoke of the second great battle of 
Maine, in the home of Neal Dow and in the 
state which longer than any other has had a 
Prohibitory Law, that within a decade, prohibi- 
tion shall be placed in the Constitution of the 
United States; and to this end we call to active 
co-operation all temperance, prohibition, re- 
ligious and philanthropic bodies; all patriotic, 
fraternal, civic associations, and all Americans 
who love their country! 



[87] 



What Lillian M. N. S t ev e ns Said 



FROM LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 

Mrs. Stevens' last public address was given in Port- 
land, Maine, on the occasion of the National W. C. T. U. 
Day of Prayer for the Amendment for National Consti- 
tutional Prohibition. Its topic was, "Why We Expect 
to Succeed." The closing paragraph follows: 

Some glad day the states in which to-day 
is entrenched the liquor system will rejoice 
that it has been abolished. Science, philan- 
thropy, reform, religion, and the business 
world are testifying against the liquor traffic. 
In the light of all this we can see prohibition 
looming up all the way from Mt. Kineo in the 
east to Mt. Shasta in the west, from the pine 
forests in the north to the palmetto groves in 
the south. We verily believe that the amend- 
ment for national constitutional prohibition 
is destined to prevail and that by 1920 the 
United States flag will float over a nation re- 
deemed from the home-destroying, heart- 
breaking curse of the liquor traffic. 



[88] 



A Sacred Message 

Written by Mrs. Stevens, March 29, 
19 14, and, at her request, read by Miss 
Anna A. Gordon at the hearings on the 
Sheppard-Hobson Resolution in Washing- 
ton, April 15, 1914. 

THE movement for National 
Constitutional Prohibition is 
meeting with greater favor 
than I dared to hope on that mem- 
orable evening, September 10, 1911, 
when on behalf of the World's 
and National Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union, I made the 
Proclamation — and I dare to hope 
almost everything for the tem- 
perance cause. I know we are to 
win. In whatever world I am my 
activities will be devoted to this 
end. The destruction of the liquor 
traffic will glorify God in heaven, 
and on earth will hasten the estab- 
lishment of the kingdom of our 
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 




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